1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for managing home-devices remotely in a home-network and a method thereof, and more particularly, to an apparatus for managing home-devices remotely in a home-network and a method thereof, wherein when adding a new home-device in the home-network, the driving environment of the home-device is remotely installed, and when updating the environment setting data of the existing home-device, the environment setting data is remotely updated.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, home-devices, that is, home appliances are classified into information system equipment such as a personal computer, facsimile, and scanner; A/V equipment such as a TV, set-top box, DVD, VCR, audio, camcorder, and home game device; controlling system equipment such as a coffee-maker, electric rice cooker, refrigerator, washing machine, microwave oven, and camera; and dummy equipment such as a remote controller, inter-phone, sensor, and lighter. These equipment are connected via a telephone line, wireless LAN or Bluetooth, USB, IEEE1394, and power line, respectively.
FIG. 1 illustrates the structure of a general home-network.
The home-network comprises a home gateway 110, PLC (Power Line Communication) Module 130, HomePNA (Home Phoneline Networking Alliance) Module 140, WLAN (wireless Local Area Network) Module 150, Ethernet Module 160, IEEE1394 Module 170, and Bluetooth Module 180. Each of the modules 130 through 180 is connected to the home gateway 110 via an internal bus line or a network line.
A provider server 120 is included in an external network, and is connected to the internet. The provider server 120 is a server holding environment setting data for setting a driving environment of the home-device, e.g., a drive code of the home-device, the provider server mainly being provided by a manufacturer of the home-device.
PLC Module 130, HomePNA Module 140, WLAN Module 150, Ethernet Module 160, IEEE1394 Module 170, and Bluetooth Module 180 are provided with means for receiving data from the home devices carrying out communications by respective protocols or transmitting the data to corresponding home devices.
The respective modules 130 through 180 are connected by networks such as a corresponding telephone line network, a power line network, Bluetooth network, and wireless LAN to carry out communication with the home devices constituting each of the networks. The home device 190 is connected by the power line network to carry out the communication by the PLC module 130.
The home network is connected to the internet via the home gateway 110. The home gateway 110 is a device for providing an interface between subscriber's network such as ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) or VDSL (Very High Data Rate Digital Subscriber Line) and the home-network, and supports various protocols from a physical layer to a higher application. Also, the home gateway 110 operates 24 hours a day and hence provides a home with different types of multi-media services via the internet and connects the different types of home-devices to the home-network.
The function of the home gateway 110 is conventionally limited to data service, but now, the function of the home gateway 110 has become more complex due to support for multi-media services such as audio and video. Also, new products are being released for MPEG decoder, Codec, HomePNA, PLC, WLAN, Ethernet, VDSL/ADSL, cable modem, etc., or functions of an existing product are being added.
Thus, when a home device is added to the home-network that is managed by the home gateway 110 or a function of an existing device in the home-network is added to update the environment data thereof, loading the new home-device or new function varies depending on the communication means or configuration of the equipment.
However, there is a problem in that costs increase enormously if there are a lot of prospective customers whose service provider visits directly and updates the environment data. Also, when the customer directly connects to the provider server and updates the home-device, it is hard for the general customer who is not skilled in the field to directly work it, and if a problem occurs, then it is rather costly.
Additionally, when an outside manager automatically and remotely updates the environment data of the home device, there can be many methods of performing the updating, depending on the protocols used and the operating system. However, security problems can occur, and it is not easy for various home devices to be supported.